Thank King George I for mom 'reading riot act' to son

The other day my mother and I were talking and she mentioned that she had "read the riot act" to my brother. If I were to read someone the riot act, what exactly would I be reading?

Today it means your mother really chewed out that little jerk or scolded him or warned him of the consequences of doing whatever it was he was doing.

The phrase dates to 1715, the year after King George I took the throne of England.

This was wildly unpopular with people who favored the previous dynasty, the Stuarts.

So there were a lot of riots and general upheavals around the country.

Alarmed by these high spirits, the powers that were passed the Riot Act, which said any gathering of 12 people or more had to disperse when ordered by authorities to do so.

If they didn't, they were considered to be guilty of a felony and faced some rather nasty jail time.

Specifically, it said, in the spellings of the day:

Our sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.

It was to be read to the mob by some unlucky mayor or magistrate or somebody like that. That probably wasn't considered a plum job.

The act fell into disuse over the years but wasn't officially repealed until 1973.

I learned all this very early on in what I laughingly call my career when I worked at a paper where I was read the riot act almost every day.